Yeah, and he backed up her name-day bad luck story to save Dontos, too. But so far, they've underplayed or skipped most of the Sandor-Sansa interactions, which is ok. And again, I understand why they need to make changes. The escalation and eventual culmination of the events between them was always one of my favorite "relationships" from the books. I'm definitely missing it in the series.

Keep in mind that Quarth is on another contintent, compared to the rest of the events we're seeing. It's kind of a bastion of civilization at the edge of the desert.

The walls probably only need to be high enough to fend off hordes of Dothraki Horsemen and bandits. For that job, they seem perfectly adequate.

Qarth is also separated from Dothraki lands by the Red Waste, which is extremely hard to cross - a large portion of Dany's group died in the crossing, and a khalasar of tens of thousands would have much more trouble. Qartheen trade with the west is seaborne.

The biggest thing about Qarth's walls is that there are three of them, each bigger than the last. It was in the opening credits, if you pay attention. In the book they're described as being 30, 40, and 50 feet respectively, each in a harder stone, and set apart enough that they could basically laugh at catapults. (This description actually plays a larger role in the book, where they establish that other cities surrounding Qarth have been sacked and destroyed before.)

What I found odd about that scene was that she looked back at the dragons' cages when he asked. That's not particularly good negotiating. They clearly had more soldiers and could have just killed them all to take the dragons, now knowing where they are. They might not want to for fear of controlling them or a dozen other reasons, but I'd say it's just good practice not to tell your potential enemies where your baby dragons are.

If they wanted to, they could take them anyway. It's not like she has an army with her. I don't recall that scene being quite as ridiculous in the books, but it's been so long since I've read that book that I can't recall why the same didn't occur to me then.

If they wanted to, they could take them anyway. It's not like she has an army with her. I don't recall that scene being quite as ridiculous in the books, but it's been so long since I've read that book that I can't recall why the same didn't occur to me then.

Spoiler: show

In the books, Qarth sent people to her, and walked her back. Xaro was one of them. She was welcomed into the city.

The Qarth scene just generally sucked. I feel no need to look for explanations beyond that.

Submitting Peter Dinklage as Supporting Actor feels like a bit of a cop-out. Is their argument that the show doesn't have a lead at all?

I can't believe they didn't submit Jack Gleeson. Kit Harrington and Richard Madden are both fantastic (less convinced about Alfie Allen), but if anyone is going to surpass Dinklage it would be Gleeson. He's the most absolutely hateable character ever to grace television.

I would absolutely love to see Maise Williams with an Emmy, but that's not going to happen. The rest of the actresses, meh. Maybe they'll get a chance to shine in later episodes.

The Qarth scene just generally sucked. I feel no need to look for explanations beyond that.

Submitting Peter Dinklage as Supporting Actor feels like a bit of a cop-out. Is their argument that the show doesn't have a lead at all?

I can't believe they didn't submit Jack Gleeson. Kit Harrington and Richard Madden are both fantastic (less convinced about Alfie Allen), but if anyone is going to surpass Dinklage it would be Gleeson. He's the most absolutely hateable character ever to grace television.

I would absolutely love to see Maise Williams with an Emmy, but that's not going to happen. The rest of the actresses, meh. Maybe they'll get a chance to shine in later episodes.

After the actors realised that being a lead actor in GoT means you lose your head (or worse), living with a Supporting Actor title turned out to be easy.

I can't believe they didn't submit Jack Gleeson. Kit Harrington and Richard Madden are both fantastic (less convinced about Alfie Allen), but if anyone is going to surpass Dinklage it would be Gleeson. He's the most absolutely hateable character ever to grace television.

He should get an Emmy for making Sansa likeable. Possibly sainthood, too.

I can't believe they didn't submit Jack Gleeson. Kit Harrington and Richard Madden are both fantastic (less convinced about Alfie Allen), but if anyone is going to surpass Dinklage it would be Gleeson. He's the most absolutely hateable character ever to grace television.

He should get an Emmy for making Sansa likeable. Possibly sainthood, too.

I don't really care for how they've turned Renly's homosexuality into common knowledge. There were a few allusions to it in the books, but in the show they are leaning on it too heavily. I'm not talking about the show's lack of subtlety or it's inclusion of gay scenes. I'm talking about how everyone seems to know. Even Westerland guards around a campfire are giggling like gossipy 10 yo girls about it.

It might very well be common knowledge in the books, we just don't have many perspectives from commoners to know for sure. Littlefinger makes a public joke about it in the books (as well as in the show).

Plus, in it might be the source of jokes in Renly's host. The common soldiers are around the two and see them together alot. They may be joking about it without knowing it's true. Just guy locker room behavior.

Plus, in it might be the source of jokes in Renly's host. The common soldiers are around the two and see them together alot. They may be joking about it without knowing it's true. Just guy locker room behavior.

The two they showed joking about it weren't in Renly's army. They were part of the Lannister army that Robb smashed.

They do have catapults. In Myr, one of the free cities, they have some knowledge of optics - Myrish lenses and telescopes are frequently mentioned.

And yet, no one seems to care enough to invent plumbing.

Spoiler: show

Braavos

has aqueducts, but I don't know if anything more than that.

The Romans invented plumbing, but there were intervening centuries where many "civilized" city/states had no such benefit. Plumbing is infrastructure that takes a stable government to install and maintain...and Westeros clearly doesn't have anything close to a stable, functioning government. It's not surprising that Maesters would discover the art of lens grinding and basic optics, and pass that knowledge around amongst themselves. Finding anything resembling underground piping and water flushing mechanisms would be quite surprising.

It might very well be common knowledge in the books, we just don't have many perspectives from commoners to know for sure. Littlefinger makes a public joke about it in the books (as well as in the show).

In the HBO show Rome, one of the subplots around Caesar and his family was questioning their sexuality, which resulted in a lot of grafitti penises and gay slurs. All spurred on by a few choice words by his enemies. Maybe it's just because I'm a guy and I've done that before, but I totally expect that kind of juvenile behavior and I thought it was pretty realistic. I would expect the same thing in Westeros. If anything, I am surprised by the lack of jokes about Cersei and Jaime, at least far away from King's Landing and Tywin himself.

Also having two separate tents for the King and Queen who were newly married and haven't spent a night together is bound to result in that kind of talk.

^^^Your point about that kind of rumor being fairly expected in the ranks is a good one, but your example is incorrect.

On Rome, the only speculation about his sexuality was Atia suggesting that Octavian had seduced Caesar the night that he had a seizure. The graffiti was because of the (accurate) rumors about Caesar's relationship with Servilia, which were spread intentionally by Atia to publicly shame her rival.

The Lannister guards' banter was pointed...it wasn't just questioning Renly's sexuality...it was very specifically pointed at him and Loras. Even though Loras is a highly respected and skilled swordsman (known even to lowly soldiers in the Lannister army) it's easy to question his skill "How good could he be? He's been stabbing Renly Baratheon with his sword for years, and he's not dead yet!" (which did make me laugh, btw)

So if two lowbrow sword slingers are so acutely aware of the relationship, I'd assume it's widely known but not openly discussed amongst the higher-ups.

Plus, they'd been screwing around in King's Landing for years before Robert died, and it's pretty hard to keep things like that a secret. Guards, servants, chamber maids, etc. all are "not seen" by the higher ups, but they see plenty themselves.